How it unfolded
The two men had once been training partners and had already fought once at UFC 47 in 2004, which Chuck Liddell won by second-round knockout. The rematch two and a half years later had a different character. Liddell was now light heavyweight champion and the sport's biggest draw, while Tito Ortiz, one of the UFC's original stars, had returned. Ortiz outperformed expectations early with takedowns that put Liddell on the mat, but Liddell kept getting back up against the cage wall and kept landing his signature counter overhand right whenever the fight stood up. With about a minute left in the third round, Ortiz was pinned against the fence absorbing a string of punches, and referee Mario Yamasaki stopped the fight at 3:59. The event sold roughly 1.05 million pay-per-view buys, the first time the UFC crossed the million mark, and it later emerged that the UFC's PPV revenue for 2006 as a whole had surpassed that of American professional boxing.
Why it still matters
This fight confirmed with hard numbers that MMA had become a mainstream pay-per-view product in the United States. Crossing the million-buy threshold changed how broadcasters and sponsors treated the sport, and the fan base Liddell built became the financial and psychological foundation the UFC drew on to acquire PRIDE the following year.